Unlocked iPhone Worthless After F.B.I. Spills Glass of Water on It

WASHINGTON (Satire from The Borowitz Report)—Moments after successfully unlocking the San Bernardino iPhone, the F.B.I. rendered the phone permanently useless by spilling a glass of water on it, an F.B.I. spokesman confirmed on Tuesday.

Calling the accident "one of the biggest embarrassments in F.B.I. history," bureau spokesman Harland Dorrinson told reporters, "There's no way to express how bad we feel about what happened to that phone."

Walking reporters through the mishap, Dorrinson said that shortly after the iPhone was unlocked, "There were a lot of high-fives, which led to the unfortunate spilling of the water."

After repeatedly attempting to reboot the phone with no success, the F.B.I. consulted several Apple support forums for tips on fixing a waterlogged iPhone. "I wish I could report that any of them worked," the spokesman said.

In a possible thawing of relations between Apple and the F.B.I., Apple C.E.O. Tim Cook offered to replace the damaged iPhone for seven hundred and forty-nine dollars, or two hundred and ninety-nine dollars with a two-year contract.

Andy Borowitz is the New York Times best-selling author of “The 50 Funniest American Writers,” and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes the Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news, for newyorker.com.